Operator killed after MBTA trains collide in Newton

By STEVE LEBLANCAssociated Press Writer

Thursday

May 29, 2008 at 4:33 AMMay 29, 2008 at 4:34 AM

NEWTON, Mass. (AP) — Two commuter trains collided and derailed during the evening rush hour outside Boston on Wednesday, trapping and killing the operator of one train and injuring several passengers, authorities officials.

Investigators did not know what caused the Boston wreck, which killed the 24-year-old woman and injured about 10 passengers in an above-ground accident near a station in suburban Newton, said Joe Pesaturo, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.

He said Terrese Edmonds's body was still trapped in the wreckage late Wednesday. The operation to rescue her was later transformed into a recovery mission, firefighters said.

The two-car train she was operating slammed into the back of another two-car train approaching Woodland Station, Pesaturo said.

"The first one was stopped at a red signal and was ready to proceed to the station when it was struck," he said.

For several hours, firefighters struggled frantically to free the woman who was operating the train that hit the other, and Pesaturo said she appeared to have suffered serious injuries. The rescue operation later appeared to fizzle out and an emergency helicopter that was on hand to transport her to hospital left a nearby golf course.

One passenger was flown to a Boston hospital, and the other injured commuters were taken to nearby Newton-Wellesley Hospital.

The hospital had eight train-wreck patients, including two who walked in, none with serious injuries, said spokesman Brian O'Dea.

Passenger Barry Gallup, standing aboard the train that was hit, told WCVB-TV that the impact threw him to the floor.

"I may have been knocked out for a few seconds. ... The next thing I knew I was lying on the ground," Gallup told WCVB.

He described a confused scene immediately after the crash, with some passengers screaming and small fires breaking out on the side of the train. Other passengers concurred about the chaos.

"There was a 70-year-old old guy who went ballistic, screaming at the conductor, 'You killed my wife! You killed my wife!' And the wife is going, 'I'm OK! I'm OK,'" passenger Matt Stone, 46, told The Boston Globe.

Federal investigators were on their way to the crash site to study the scene and interview witnesses, said Peter Knudson, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board.

The investigators will then travel to Washington where they "will continue to look at a lot of factual information about the train system, operators, human factors, signal, maintenance issues," before releasing a report in about 18 months, Knudson said.